The Pragmatic Putin Drops A Bombshell

Other Views

July 30, 2001|By William Safire, New York Times

WASHINGTON -- Vladimir Putin yanked the rug out from under Democrats opposed to missile defense.

It happened "unexpectedly," as the Russian described it, when Presidents Putin and Bush agreed to work on a new strategic framework to alter or replace the old Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, in tandem with lowering each nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Putting the two together -- raising limited defenses while lowering strategic offenses -- was not a new idea. In May of 2000, candidate Bush's defense team had him suggest a way to "defuse confrontation with Russia" by coupling our withdrawal from ABM's restraints with cutting our stockpile of 7,000 nuclear missiles "to the lowest possible number consistent with our national security."

The Bush notion was to break both ends of the logjam at the same time. If the Russians wanted to go along on both, fine, but they would have (a) no veto of America's anti-missile defense against rogue nations and (b) no part of our decision about how low our numbers of offensive missiles could go without jeopardizing U.S. security.

President Bill Clinton seized that idea one month later but weakened the Bush formulation. In Moscow, Putin and he declared that "issues of strategic offensive arms" -- that is, the number of missiles stockpiled under the Start treaties -- "cannot be considered in isolation from issues of strategic defensive arms," which meant the ABM treaty.

Clinton's stated purpose in making that linkage was "to strengthen the ABM treaty and to enhance its viability." But that was directly contrary to Bush's purpose, which was to withdraw from that treaty so that we could build a defense against terrorist missiles without challenging Russia's nuclear deterrent.

Some of us hooted at that Putin-Clinton linkage and its misbegotten purpose. We wanted that ABM treaty dead, the opposite of "viable," to allow us to develop and deploy anti-missile missiles to defend our presently vulnerable cities.

Putin's reaction last year was mystifying. "We're familiar with the program of the two candidates . . .," he said, noting the basic difference between Clinton-Gore and Bush. "We're willing to go forward on either one of these approaches."

That had us all scratching our heads. There was a vast difference between Bush's loose, voluntary linkage to gain American freedom of action, and Clinton-Gore's tight linkage allowing Russia to determine both our ABM restrictions and Start limitations.

Was the new Russian leader too inexperienced to see it? Or was Putin puttin' us on, figuring he could lock Bush, if he won, into giving Russia the veto on both our missile defense and offense?

Now we know Putin was prepared to accept less than what Clinton agreed to. This week in Genoa, the pragmatic Russian did not hold out for a negotiation in which nothing was decided until everything was decided. Instead, he settled for rhetorical linkage -- "joint striving" and "intensive consultations on the interrelated subjects of offensive and defensive systems."

In return, Bush heartily embraced the linkage -- too heartily, in my view, with his "the two go hand in hand," as if ABM were Hansel and Start III Gretel. Certainly we should use our planned unilateral reduction of offensive missiles to "defuse confrontation with Russia," as Bush suggested last year. But we should not let America's timetable for a missile defense be determined by Russia's desire for us to reduce offensive missiles to a level below what our military considers essential to national security.

That's why we see administration spokesmen now straining to show daylight between the loose "interrelated" and the tight "linked." (Good luck on that one, especially in light of "the two go hand in hand.")

Bush is faced with defense decisions this year forbidden by the dying ABM treaty. Putin's delaying strategy may be to shift attention to the reduction of offensive missiles, with legions of experts drawn up in what Churchill called "vast cumbrous array." If that's the Russian's plan, Bush would have to counter it by making the unilateral double move he set forth a year ago.

Because the Democrats cannot appear to be more recalcitrant than the Russians, Sens. Joe Biden and Carl Levin this past week indicated their willingness to take yes for an answer.

Deep down, the treaty-loving pair must be muttering: You just can't trust that Putin.